


Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything

by Gaya



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: F/M, about grief and complicated feelings, as always a warning for mature language, but this is fdtd so you should expect that really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-05-09 14:02:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5542613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gaya/pseuds/Gaya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The holy blood that started everything is there too, mixed in the air, like copper just stronger, older. The smells hang in the air like ghosts taunting him, opening something just recently closed and it feels like he's the one bleeding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Missing Kate

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from a quote A Grief Observed by C S Lewis, sad but beautiful book.

 

 

 

> “Have you ever lost someone you love and wanted one more conversation, one more chance to make up for the time when you thought they would be here forever? If so, then you know you can go your whole life collecting days, and none will outweigh the one you wish you had back.”  
>  ―  **Mitch Albom** ,  **For One More Day**

 

 

Even before Scott came back telling them there was no body at the blood well, Richie had this _feeling_ , like a presence in his thoughts, sharper than Santanicos's ever was, pushing and pulling, trying to guide him into a direction he didn’t want to follow.

Seth was the one to go back with the boy to take a better look and check if the body wasn't really there; if, maybe, Scott couldn’t have missed anything.  The look he gave Richie after he refused to go with them stung a lot more than actually being called a coward by his brother. But what good was it going to be? She'd still be dead and he'd still be hurting, only a little more.

But the presence kept nagging him to go and, in the end, he bent.

He should know by now not to follow a calling from an unknown source.

Turns out maybe he's not as smart as he likes to think he is.

Five steps from where he is standing she told him to burn in hell, and right where he is it feels like her wish is being fulfilled.

The place is as clean as it was before Carlos shot Kate right before his eyes and he couldn’t do shit, and he suspects Seth has something to do with it. His big brother has always been a champion for misplaced anger; or feelings in general. If Seth doesn’t know how to feel about something ― can’t change or control said thing ― he gets angry and his denial kicks in.

And if there’s no blood he can pretend she’s not dead.

But Richie can still catch her faint scent, something smooth and natural like the flowers his mother used to bring home, laced with gunpowder and iron from her honeymoon with Seth. The holy blood that started everything is there too, mixed in the air, like copper just stronger, older. The smells hang in the air like ghosts taunting him, opening something just recently closed and it feels like he's the one bleeding.

But there’s really nothing there anymore.

No Kate and no blood.

He swallows, wants to go away.

But he turns to where the calling guides him and carefully pulls the wooden board to find whatever he's supposed to. And then there's Kate's cross shining delicately under the moonlight. He picks it up and looks around knowing damn well he won't find anything, but…

Why him?

Scott and Seth had been to the same place and couldn't find anything, not even her body, so why this cross was left like this for him?

Was it a gift?

Was it a curse?

Was it a mock?

He closes his fingers around the metal and feels like it’s burning against his skin. He should give it to Scott and tell Seth he’d been there. It’s a reminder of her faith and her death; of a loss that hurts more than he can admit without being embarrassed by himself.

 _(But who’s Kate Fuller_?

Someone he wanted to protect.

Someone who, maybe…)

He wonders _, hopes_ , but can’t find the guts to put it into words, even only in his thoughts. So he clasps the fine golden chain around his neck, under his shirt, and protects this secret the way he couldn’t protect her.

 

-o-

 

Richie’s never been in a Baptist church before.

The place is big enough to fit the balcony where he’s sitting, but there are no voluptuous images or golden icons. A big wooden cross is especially well lighted hanging on the pastel wall behind the altar, just under the organ pipes, but that’s it. There’s a peace in that simplicity that he would enjoy a lot better if he wasn’t running from the _silence_.

Ever since he found the cross, whatever guided him to it vanished and he should be relieved, but can’t help the sense of loneliness taking over him. So that’s how he ends up in church service after more than a decade being just fine as a heathen bastard. The pastor leads the congregation into an anthem and Richie closes his eyes to let it in when the voice comes from fucking nowhere.

“They sure like music.”

In theory, his heart can’t beat anymore, but Seth’s sudden appearance sure as hell made him feel like it stopped. More than his brother’s presence, he is surprised by his own lack of attention. It should have been really easy to sense the approach of someone so familiar and he doesn’t want to think about what makes him so weak – so human – right now.

“What the hell you’re doing here, Richard?” Seth asks firmly, but without raising his voice.

_Missing Kate._

“There was a church like that one block from our house, remember?”

Seth shifts his weight from one foot to another, looking uncomfortable, and then sits by his side, frowning. He doesn’t give two shits about what’s sacred for culebras (including their goddess), but human churches and saints are another thing entirely.

“I do, mom used to go there every weekend. But that one was catholic, right?” Richie nods “This one is protestant… And so was Kate”

The song stops, and the pastor claps from his pulpit before calling everyone to start a prayer that makes the golden chain under Richie’s shirt feel tighter around his neck.

_Our Father, Who art in heaven_

“I tried to save her, Seth, thought I could protect her.”

“And look where that got us, prodigy.”

_Hallowed be Thy Name_

“And what would  _you_ have done, big brother?”

“Kicked her out of the car, _as I did_ , by the way.”

_Thy kingdom come_

“I couldn’t, ok? I tried, but I couldn’t. Not after I learned how it made her feel. She was lonely and lost, Seth, and she didn’t deserve to feel like that.”

Seth looks at him; surprise and hurt mixed in his expression.

“How’d you _know_ how it made her feel?”

_Thy will be done_

“I shared blood with her. Don’t look at me like that, it was me or Malvado. You have no idea how much trouble I went through just to take her out of the lair where _her_ _brother_ left her.”

_On earth as it is in heaven._

“Just to take her to the fucking blood well and let her die.” It’s a bit too loud and someone shushes from a nearby sit.

_Give us this day our daily bread_

“Is it me you’re angry with, or is it yourself?” Richie bites, answering to the poison in his brother’s tone “You left her alone after she said she was not ready and you need someone to blame. Is that why you stayed?”

_And forgive us our trespasses_

At that, Seth backs off. His shoulders relax and the fight in his eyes dies a little. Richie sighs with relief. He wouldn’t be able to handle Seth hating him _that_ much too.

“No, I…” he bites his lips stopping himself from saying something Richie mentally completes as _I needed my brother_ , cause he does too, but right now they can’t seem to find their way back to each other. Not yet.

 _As we forgive those who trespass against us_.

“I’m sorry about leaving you. I thought… I don’t know…”

Seth nods with a knowing look and turns to the church.

“Church never helped our mother.”

_And lead us not into temptation,_

“Or me, I used to pray too, you know? After the beatings.”

_But deliver us from evil._

“But _you did_ , you helped us.”

Richie raises his eyebrows looking at Seth while his brother seems to be focused on something in front of him. It’s not forgiveness, but it’s acknowledgment and it’s enough for now.

( _Who’s Kate Fuller?_

Someone who had faith in him.

And if she had not run

If she trusted him a little longer,

he could have helped her too)

 

_Amen._


	2. Hope and dead things

> “Some old wounds never truly heal, and bleed again at the slightest word.”
> 
> ―  **George R.R. Martin** ,  **A Game of Thrones**

 

The dream starts as a memory.

He’s a boy, kneeling and whispering so he won’t wake his brother or – worst case scenario – his father. Seth’s breathing sounds difficult, which is no wonder after Ray’s last beating, and Richie’s knuckles are white from holding on to his last shred of faith.

_He’s trying not to notice the important absence that allowed Seth to be beaten so hard and the black eye he’s displaying under his glasses._

 She got away, he told himself when Ray brought the news.

_But there’s a bloodstain on the carpet, on her side of the bed._

He’s been praying ever since they were little and his mother taught them, but it never helped like the teachings his father inadvertently gave him. How to be silent and walk around him when he’s sleeping; how to notice when Seth is about to say something stupid and kick him with a warning look before he could; how to steal sleeping pills at the drugstore and slip them in his drinks whenever he could so they’d have a peaceful night for a change at home, and no one would get beaten or tortured.

_His mother taught other useful things too. Like how to clean bloodstains so father wouldn’t be mad if someone, like uncle Eddie, saw them and he had to give explanations. Ray never learned how to clean the messes he made._

She managed to run away and she would come back to save her sons.

_But there’s an orange stain on the carpet by her side of the bed, the kind you get when you don’t let bleach rest long enough before trying to wash it, like his mother taught him not to do._

_The stain appeared the day after she was gone._

_And his father doesn’t know how to clean blood._

Richie wakes up the next day, looks at Seth and just knows what he has to do.

He takes one last look at his mother’s chaplet on their nightstand before taking it and putting it in the drawer to never look at it again. He prepares breakfast as silently as possible. Takes eggs, bacon and orange juice to their bedroom for Seth, threatens to get one of the guns and shoot him if he tries to get out of bed to go to school and, when it doesn’t work, mentions how their usual bullies would just love to punch his already broken ribs and that does the trick.

He gets his backpack and some hidden money inside the wooden board behind bed, answers his father’s provocation with a stare and a nod and passes by the church without a second glance on his way to buy a big can of lighter fluid.

He slips some pills in his father’s drink when he gets home, but realizes – too late – it was not enough for him to sleep through the fire.

That night is not peaceful.

But then uncle Eddie can finally reach them and help. Everybody hated Ray Gecko and he wonders if his uncle would actually be mad if he ever found out, but, just for safety, makes Seth promise he won’t ever talk about that night ever again with anyone.

They learn how to clean different types of guns without sick mind games, and get the weekends to go to the beach. Everyone seems happier without Ray around, but his mother never comes back. And he should know better, but with the news of his father’s death spreading he thought, maybe…

_Sometimes he forgets about the stain on the carpet. Some part of him seems to just pretend it never happened and it’s blacked out of his mind, the same part that stops him from telling Seth about it. But he just needs to open his eyes and realize she is not there to remember._

And suddenly, the day becomes night at the beach and he’s not dodging a cloud of sand Seth kicked in his direction.

He looks down to check the cheap bible-selling suit he wasn’t wearing a second ago and closes his eyes with the tangible notion that this is not a memory anymore and he can’t control anything that happens from here.

This is not **_his_** dream.

He closes his eyes wanting desperately to wake up, but unable to. There’s a familiar presence near and he **has** to run because someone is trying to play with his head again, but his legs are frozen and he’s stuck in this nightmare dressed as a dream.

He feels the tingles of goosebumps on the skin of his arm moments before there are fingers intertwining with his. They are small and warm, fit unbelievably well in his hand and he has felt that before… During a prayer in a crowded RV, in a small room inside a snake pit, sharing blood in front of a heathen Lord…

“Open your eyes, Richard.” It’s a whisper, a temptation.

There are nails biting his palms – _his_ – and a thumb caressing the back of his hand – _not his_.

“Who are you?” he sounds broken to his own ears, almost whimpering.

He wants to believe, but has learned his lesson by now.

And she lets a muffled laugh escape like she just heard an inside joke only they understand

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

He finally opens his eyes then, but there’s no one when he looks around.

His dead heart is hammering his ribs, pumping something cold and dangerous through his veins.

Something like _hope_ or _fear_. Maybe both.

( _Who’s Kate Fuller?_

_A possibility_

_A question he... He might have a second chance to answer_.”)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it! 
> 
> I was going to add another act, but decided to keep it like this after watching the first two episodes of season three, because I think it kinda fits as a headcanon of what happened between seasons. Maybe I'll edit it and post as oneshot, who knows. 
> 
> Hope you'all enjoyed it!

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still working on the second and final chapter, but got a little stuck so I decided to post the first part to see if you think it's worth it. So if you like, comment to let me know, please. If you didn't, well, thank you for your time :P


End file.
